Love Not Hate
by inluvwitcurtis
Summary: pre ssn 2...basically how michelle's feelings for tony change drastically. pleas RR. my first fanfic so be nice
1. Chapter 1

Michelle hated him. He was so self-absorbed with his mini fan club with girls from I.T., he thought he was all that. Paula Schaeffer being his number one fan, knowing everything about him from his favorite movie to his favorite coffee blends. She couldn't believe how social CTU was. Back at Division, everything was business, and nobody ever gossiped. Here, there were girls chit-chatting about how muscularly fit Tony Almeida was.

Diana McShane walked up to Michelle.

"Look, Michelle, I know you just got here yesterday, but you seem really anti-social, and me and some of the girls wanted to know if you'd like to have lunch with us in two hours?"

Michelle hesitated. "Uh, okay, I guess. Where are you going?"

"There's a small café in Beverly Hills, it's about a ten minute drive from here, we always go there for lunch." Diana smiled. "Glad you can come,"

"Okay. Well, I'll see you then." Michelle returned the smile and continued typing at her computer.

Tony just stared at her. She was amazing, nothing at all like Nina or Paula or any of the I.T girls. She was beautiful, strong and probably sensitive. She only started working here yesterday, but he already felt attached to her. Like he could tell her anything; open up to her. Tony finally turned his head and looked back at his computer screen. If anything she could do, it would be to make him melt. She had smiled once before, during the interview, and that smiled had been with him, and always would be with him.

Suddenly, Tony's phone rang.

"Almeida," he picked up.

"Yeah, Tony, can you send over those files that were accessed earlier in I.T.?" It was Michelle.

"Okay sure." He replied. "When do you need them?"

"Now," Michelle answered and hung up.

Tony looked over his shoulder once again and sent her the files. She didn't look up but instead continued working. Two hours later, Michelle was finished all her work, and was ready to get some lunch with Diana and the other girls.

"Michelle! Come on!" Diana called. She and Alicia Farhight, Lisa Renaldo, Paula Schaeffer and Gina Morrison were standing near the front door.

The café that the girls went to was small. It had been own by the same guy and his family for 30 years, and it was perfectly modern.

"We've got some gossip to catch up on," Paula insisted, when they were seated.

Oh great, Michelle thought, they're going to start talking about Tony. "Sure," She said.

"Oh my GOD! Did you see what Tony is wearing today?" Alicia practically cried out. "He is _so_ gorgeous."

"Agreed," Said Diana. "But first, we've got to welcome our guest, Michelle."

The four other women clapped and Michelle blushed.

"I know you've only been here a day, but doesn't mean you _haven't _already noticed Tony Almeida, right?" Gina asked. "I mean, I caught him staring at you during the meeting this morning."

Paula gawked. "Staring at you definitely means that he likes you, Michelle. I mean, I've spent every moment at CTU trying to get Tony to notice me, and all I really come across as is a friend."

She seemed pretty angry with Michelle. Michelle bit her lip.

"Well, I'm not exactly the biggest fan of Tony." She responded, trying to clear the air.

All five girls just stared at her, while they enjoyed an awkward silence.

"Then I guess you'll just have to deal with hearing us go on and on about him!" Lisa joked, and the women finally shared a small laugh.

"Anyway, I heard that Tony's been eying the new I.T girl, uh, Jenny something. I also heard that he's slept with Michelle. But I guess that's not true, considering that you hate him?" Diana asked.

"Who told you that I slept with him? I barely know him! I only just met him yesterday and at the interview but that was only for a half-hour!" Michelle demanded.

"It's just a rumor that Leanne told me. She says that he's sleeping around with the new people so he can use them, but she makes up a lot of things. And she hates Tony and will do anything to make him angry."

Gina piped up. "Leanne also said that Jack killed his wife, which we know is not true because we all know that Nina Myers killed her."

"Nina, the lucky bitch, was dating Tony and when he found out that she was the mole, he immediately broke things off with her," Alicia added.

"He's been afraid to date ever since that one day six months ago," Lisa said. "The poor guy."

Diana, Paula, Gina, Lisa and Alicia all sighed.

When the food got there, the women mostly talked about CTU and all the nasty rumors that were going around, and Tony hardly ever came up.

"But back to Tony," Paula said, "I know that this may seem out of character to you, Michelle, but we need you to help us spy on Tony."

"Spy?" Michelle inquired.

"Yeah, you know, to find out any dirty secrets that he may have."

Michelle grinned. "Okay."


	2. Chapter 2

The first chapter was kind of bad because I made it up on a boring day. Hopefully this chapter's better.

Thanks for the reviews BTW!

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Michelle had never spied before. She and Danny had always pretended to spy on their parents, but that was probably as close as it got for her. She didn't know how she was going to spy, or how to get anything out of Tony, but she could try. Paula was already setting up a monitoring system, so she could monitor his calls and e-mails without him knowing. Michelle was really excited and nervous.

She was on her way to work, driving in her small red sedan, when she saw Tony on the street. At first it didn't look like Tony, but after she got closer she realized that it was him. Michelle honked her horn for him to get off the road and he flashed her the finger.

Tony didn't know that it was Michelle who had honked at him; otherwise, he wouldn't have given her the finger. He was on his cell phone and didn't have time to look at the driver.

"Anthony? Did you hear me?" Tony was on the phone with his mother, who was begging him to do something he did every year.

"Yeah mom, I did. But come on? The littlest angel in the Christmas pageant? I would never live it down if someone saw me dressed up like an _angel_."

"Anthony, you have an amazing voice! You are the best singer in the drama club, and we need you to be in this pageant!"

Tony had played roles in his mother's pageants for as long as he could remember, but this year was the end of it all. He didn't want to be known as the 'Angel Boy' like he had been for numerous years. He had played the Easter bunny and even the turkey, plus the littlest angel, which amounted to years and years of horrible teasing.

"Mom, I told you! No Angel Boy for me this year!" Tony said, attempting to be as straightforward with his mother, without her getting angry for his attitude.

"ANTHONY ALMEIDA YOU WILL PLAY THE LITTLEST ANGEL IN THE CHRISTMAS PAGEANT OR I'LL SHREAD YOU'RE BLANKY TO PIECES!"

God damn it! Tony thought. His mother always had to bring up 'Blanky', his beloved blanket that he'd had since he was a baby. It was the best way to blackmail him into anything, even the littlest angel.

"Mother I'm a federal agent, and if you do that, I'll have you arrested for the damage of a beloved item." He warned her, half joking.

"Anthony you know and I know that that's not a real crime. You are to come down to the theater later today, when you get off work, and we'll discuss your costume. Ah, another year has come and gone, and you've grown out of you angel suit."

Tony cringed at the thought of his angel suit: a long, silky, white-and-gold robe with a pipe-cleaner halo and tacky white loafers.

"Whatever. Fine, I'll play the littlest angel. Just don't breathe a word of it to anyone!"

Michelle was one of the first people to arrive at CTU, along with some of the analysts but that was it. She decided to try and snoop around Tony's files to check on anything unusual, like medical records, before any real terrorist threats came in. She searched and searched until something finally came up. He had a record of broken bones; 7 in the last five years. She snooped and snooped until she found out that people beating him up for his roles in his mother's dramas caused his broken bones.

Michelle had to hold herself from laughing. Tony Almeida, the drama king? She finally copied the files and sent them to the women she'd had lunch with the day before. Just then, the door swung open and Tony entered. A smile quickly danced across Michelle's face as she saw him briskly walk over to his station.

"What?" He demanded as soon as he realized she was smiling at him.

"Oh…nothing," She replied.

"Yeah, okay. What's happened so far? Any terrorist threats? Bombs planted anywhere? Anything?"

"Nope, but there's a call for you on line one," Michelle replied, pressing the star button on her phone, transferring the call to Tony's line.

"Almeida,"

"Mr. Tony Almeida? I understand that while George Mason is away, you are the ranking agent in charge, right?" A sly voice asked.

"Yes. Who is this?"

"I'll tell you after. But first, go to a secure line in a room where you'll be alone."

Tony went over to Tech 1, where no one was yet. He was wireless and had put a scrambled filter on the line.

"What do you want?" He demanded. He was positive that this could be a threat.

"Access your criminal records, and look under Max Lucas. I need you to delete the file."

"What will you do if I don't?"

"Open up a socket and in the password box, type star-alpha-star-star."

Tony did so, and a screen popped up, showing a masked man with a phone, and in the chair, his mother. The masked man was holding a gun to his mother's head.

"Don't you dare, you sonofabitch!"

"Do it Mr. Almeida,"

"Never. Don't touch her, and maybe we can come to an agreement."

"Are you saying that you won't do it?" The man, who was obviously Max Lucas asked.

"Yes. Now where are you? I'll come meet you and we'll make a deal. Or we can make a deal right now on the phone."

"Too late," the man replied, and shot Tony's mother in the head.


	3. Chapter 3

Unexpected. Very unexpected. It had just happened like that, so quickly, that Tony didn't have time to process it all. Some guy who wanted his criminal record deleted had just shot his mother. His mother. His amazing, funny, caring mother.

Tears were quickly being shed as Tony let out a scream.

"Don't mess with me, Mr. Almeida, for the good of your family, don't mess with me." The man spoke so coldly, as if he didn't care who he killed.

Tony's eyes were red and puffy, and his voice was shaky. "You sonofabitch. Killing my innocent mother just to have me get rid of your criminal record deleted? You shallow sonofabitch."

"Delete it, because I have your father here, too."

Tony didn't want to lose another parent, especially since his father was also so amazing. He found the record and immediately faxed it to the man's phone.

"I don't wanna get caught deleting your file, so I'm sending it to you, so you can do whatever the hell your sick mind tells you to do. Just please, let my father go."

"You'll come to the abandoned house down on Arbor Street, and that's where your father will be."

The phone clicked, initiating the end of the call.

Michelle needed some data from Tony and she needed it right then. She didn't know where Tony was, but he certainly wasn't at his station, and he wasn't in the break room or the conference room. A while ago, she had seen him go over to tech 1, so that's where she checked first. The door was locked. She tried her entrance code, but someone obviously re-wrote it.

"Paula, you're good at re-writing passwords?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Can you re-write the password to tech 1?"

"Yeah, sure. I'm changing it to 1-2-3-2, okay?"

"Yeah,"

Michelle pressed the buttons in and opened the door to tech 1. There, she saw Tony, sobbing in the corner of the room. As much as she didn't want to, she went over to Tony and sat down next to him.

"What's the matter?" She asked. She wasn't good at comforting people, especially people from work, who she had just met three days ago, but somehow she felt obliged to ask him.

"A terrorist threat. Some guy called me and told me that if I didn't delete his record he'd shoot my mother."

"Did you comply?"

"Of course not. My mother's been shot, she's dead."

"Holy crap," was all Michelle managed to say. She felt Tony's pain; when she was 16, her father had been mugged and killed.

"And he threatened to kill my father, too, if I didn't get rid of his record, so I sent it to him,"

Michelle felt awkward as she did this, but she wrapped her arm around Tony's shoulder.

"He told me to pick my father up at the abandoned house on Arbor,"

"I'll send someone over there for you,"

"Thanks,"

Michelle had never seen Tony's vulnerably side, she didn't even think he had one. She guessed that maybe he wasn't so self-absorbed after all. Maybe he didn't know that he was attractive, smart, tough…okay, she thought, I should really stop.

"Do you want some coffee?" Michelle asked, without removing her arm from around his shoulder.

Tony nodded as his cell phone rang.

"Almeida."

"Tony Almeida? This is Ashton Kutcher."

"What the fuck?"

"Open up the video feed again,"

Tony did so and saw the same masked man on the phone. The man slowly pulled off the mask, only to reveal Ashton Kutcher smiling and waving. The person on the floor, presumably Tony's mother, took off a mask and revealed herself as someone on Ashton's team.

"I didn't really shoot her, and she's not really your mother, oh, and I don't really have your father here."

"You fucking sonofabitch! You led me to believe that she was dead!" Tony yelled.

"Tony Almeida, you've been punk'd!"


	4. Chapter 4

"Mr. Almeida? Are you there?" Ashton asked on the other line of the phone.

"My mother's still alive? The Christmas pageant's still going on?"

"Whoa! I don't know anything about a Christmas pageant, but yeah, she's alive. Also that Max Lucas guy, he's fake. We had George Mason create that 'criminal.' Just to let you know."

Tears of horror now turned into tears of joy. "So you didn't really shoot anyone?"

"Big gun sound, fake blood, nobody's hurt. Your parents are in the other room, though. And just so you're not mad at us, we thought it'd be funny if we did a Punk'd about some government agency, like CTU."

Tony was now laughing. "Okay, thanks," He said, and hung up.

Michelle looked at him. "What happened?"

"Well I've been punk'd. It was all fake. Mason knew about it and created the criminal guy, and my parents knew all about it. God, who knew?"

Michelle smiled. This was a totally different side of Tony. Even though she had only been working there three days, she didn't think that Tony had smile muscles. Let alone the power to laugh.

"So, you're the littlest angel, huh?"

Tony stopped smiling. "What the…?"

"I read about you and your mother's dramas,"

Tony smiled a sheepish, but amazing smile.

"Do you still want that coffee?" Michelle asked.

He laughed and nodded.

Michelle didn't know why, but she thought she was falling for Tony Almeida…

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Well that's it…fourth and final chapter of Love Not Hate. Hope you enjoyed it! I'm working on the sequel, so that should come out soon. Please review!


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